Truth or Die

by Katerina Diamond

  ‘Nope, no plans.’

  There was a pause, awkward, too long to be natural.

  ‘You could come over to mine when we’ve finished if you want … no strings,’ Denise said, a cheeky smile on her face, the kind of smile that had worked on him several times in the past.

  ‘Um, wow, thanks, but I think I have a migraine brewing.’ Strange that she would proposition him now; maybe it was just the idea of being alone. Valentine’s Day seemed to magnify any feelings of loneliness in everyone; Adrian knew because he could feel it, too.

  ‘I thought maybe you wanted to get together, I thought that’s why you agreed to do this.’

  ‘Denise, you know I like you a lot, but I’m just not in the right headspace to be in a relationship right now, no strings or otherwise.’

  ‘Oh. Sorry I brought it up. Let’s get back to work. No big deal.’ Her face was flushed, easy to see against her porcelain skin and bleached bob; the pink shone through like sunburn. She seemed embarrassed at her assumption and shut down completely.

  Just then, the station door opened and one of the uniformed officers walked in, dragging a sullen-looking boy behind him, his face white with a tinge of green. The boy looked up and grinned at them both behind the counter, then projectile vomited against the window. Both Adrian and Denise jumped back to avoid the spray, stopped abruptly by the clear wall of glass, all that was between them and a shower of gloopy stomach contents.

  Adrian groaned to himself. Why did he volunteer for this?

  ‘Who’s this charmer then?’ he asked.

  ‘Name’s Finn Blackwell,’ the constable said, ‘student up at the uni, caught him driving the wrong way around a roundabout. We had to breathalyse him and he’s well over the limit. We’ve brought him in to sober up.’

  ‘Whereabouts?’

  ‘Marsh Barton. No one around, but you know.’

  ‘Well that was silly, wasn’t it, Finn?’ Adrian said as Denise scribbled down the information. The glass had become almost clear as the pale brown gelatinous liquid pooled at the bottom of the counter and over the edge onto the floor.

  ‘I do apologise,’ the boy said with a sarcastic wobble of his head.

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘I’m nineteen. Twenty in August. You interested, darling?’ He winked at Denise, who just rolled her eyes and continued writing.

  ‘Chuck him in number four while we get this cleaned up,’ Adrian said.

  The constable took Finn Blackwell through to the holding cells.

  ‘I don’t know what’s going on up at that university,’ Denise said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, last week I had a couple of other incidents up there. A kid was arrested for possession. A couple of disturbances – nothing major, just a little unusual. Then, of course, there was that idiot Toby Hoare, who climbed up the cathedral and fell off.’ She still wouldn’t look Adrian in the eye.

  ‘Look, Denise, about earlier.’

  ‘Please, don’t mention it,’ she said. He could tell from her tone that she meant it.

  ‘I’m going to get this cleaned up,’ Adrian said. He did regret their previous fling a little; he had used her, and he wasn’t proud of it. Just because she’d let him didn’t make it any better. He knew he couldn’t be that person any more. Adrian needed to be better, he wanted to be better and he couldn’t quite put his finger on why.

  Chapter Three

  Imogen felt comfortable in black; it suited her. It seemed strange to have picked out her dress the day before; she could only imagine what her mother would have said about it. An insult disguised as a compliment: how it would look nicer if it was longer, or shorter, or a different colour. But not the way it was, never the way it was. It was the same with everything; Imogen always thought that one day she would be good enough, would do something right. Not today though, never today.

  She tried not to be resentful of her mother on the day of her funeral, but the anger she felt towards her was not something she ever thought would go away. She didn’t know why either, not really. Her mother had made a lot of questionable life decisions, but Imogen wasn’t unhappy with the person she had grown up to be. It seemed unfair that she should feel this way about the one member of her family who had always been there for her, but there was no changing it, there was always just this low level of anger. She couldn’t pinpoint when it had started, either. The mother who raised her probably did the best she could.

  Then there was her absent father, reconnected now but a figment of her imagination for most of her life. She didn’t have all those petty squabbles or embarrassing moments to refer back to, there was no point of reference, no resentment bubbling under the surface for years and years. He was just not there. She knew how difficult her mother was; if she told her father she didn’t want him having a relationship with Imogen, then it explained why he hadn’t been around. Irene Grey had a knack for getting her own way. Imogen felt like maybe she should hate her father for not being there. But she didn’t; she blamed her mother for it instead.

  She smoothed her dress down with the palms of her hands. She didn’t even know if anyone would see her in it, apart from her father, Elias. She hadn’t invited Adrian to the funeral as she felt that it would add an extra dimension of complication to their already complex relationship. She had invited the friends of her mother’s that she knew about and just hoped that word would spread, because her mother’s life was a mystery to her. She probably knew her mother as well as her mother knew her, which wasn’t that well at all. Even though she had visited her frequently, her mum had always been into something new, some new hobby or collection or charity. Imogen had tuned most of it out. She wished her mother was there now and she would listen, she would take an interest in what she was saying and not just fob her off and look for an excuse to leave.

  Imogen imagined Irene telling her that she was putting too much mascara on as she dragged the wand across her eyelashes until they clumped together. Going to a funeral like that was just asking for trouble. Imogen wasn’t a crier, unless you counted movies like Armageddon and The Shawshank Redemption. She had managed to fine-tune her apathy in the real world, but as soon as she was immersed in fiction she seemed to be able to connect to the part of her that had emotion. She was thankful for it. If it wasn’t for those experiences, then she might worry about her own humanity; it was reassuring to know that the idea of a meteor hurtling towards the planet and wiping everyone out was distressing to her.

  When she felt like she had enough war paint on she pinned her hair back, ready to put on her mother’s yellow pillbox hat with black net across the eye. It was in the box of things she had taken from her mother’s place. Just one box from her mother’s hoard, Imogen hadn’t wanted any more than that. There were no great memories among all of Irene Grey’s possessions; she seemed to collect and discard items indiscriminately, and so Imogen had arranged for house clearance to go and sort it out after she had taken the few items she had wanted.

  Imogen picked up the hat and put it on. A touch of colour – her mother hated black. She picked up her phone, unsure whether to text Adrian; he had offered to come, but it just didn’t feel right. There was also the issue of Elias. Being with Elias reminded Imogen of her ex-boyfriend Dean, and she wasn’t over him yet. She had met Dean during a case, before she had even met her father. Her relationship with Dean was incompatible with her job; he didn’t quite operate on the right side of the law. Her father and Dean were more than friends, they were family. Her father operated several businesses and Dean was the person he sent round when all other forms of communication had broken down. Whenever she was with her dad she was aware that he was in contact with Dean and the idea of Adrian being there at the same time was a conflict Imogen wasn’t ready to deal with just yet. She would have to do today alone. It felt wrong to want support anyway; it was her mother’s funeral and Adrian barely knew her mother. She put her phone on silent and chucked it inside her bag.

  The day s
eemed to move as though she were on fast forward, occasionally stopping to take it all in, but mental absence seemed preferable to being upset. She found herself standing by the grave, her father opposite her, tears in his eyes, genuine love and affection in his disposition. She could feel the emotions creep to the surface as she thought of her parents, apart for all those years, knowing the other would come if they would only ask. How did they wait so long? If they had really loved each other wouldn’t they have just been together? She couldn’t imagine being told you couldn’t be with someone else and actually listening. How could he stand to be apart from the woman he loved? How could he stand to be apart from her, his daughter? A part of her would always resent him for that.

  She brushed her eye with the back of her hand, trying to make it look less like she was wiping away a tear. Why did she care if people saw her crying? Why wasn’t she allowed to cry?

  They lowered the coffin into the ground and the people gathered around for a few seconds, registering the moment until it was over and then dispersing. Back to life.

  Imogen suddenly felt overwhelmed. Was that it? Was her mother really gone? It just didn’t make sense. Irene Grey had been Imogen’s entire family for so long; she was the only thing Imogen could depend on being there no matter what, always where Imogen left her. It felt so wrong to leave her here.

  ‘Imogen,’ Elias said, snapping her out of her thoughts. ‘Come on. Let me buy you a drink.’

  ‘I don’t really feel like it right now, to be honest with you,’ she said. She had managed to avoid spending any meaningful time alone with Elias since she had found out who he was. Somehow, talking to him today felt like a betrayal. Her mother hadn’t wanted them to pursue a relationship, and Imogen had to wonder why.

  ‘Let’s go and raise a glass to your mother. Please.’

  ‘OK,’ she acquiesced; it didn’t feel right to just slip back into real life immediately. She would have a gin, then go home and watch black-and-white movies, maybe some Fred and Ginger.

  In the pub, the news was running, the same scaremongering, hate-fuelled drama that she had stopped watching years ago. It was no good for her anxiety.

  ‘It was peaceful when she died,’ Elias offered. ‘She didn’t even feel the aneurism; it took her in her sleep. When I woke up, she was just gone.’

  ‘That must have been awful for you. I still can’t believe it,’ Imogen said, both upset and relieved that she hadn’t been with her mother at the end.

  ‘No. It doesn’t feel real. I only just got her back.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Imogen said. She was genuinely sorry that they had spent all those years apart. Arranged marriages seemed so archaic and she just couldn’t get her head around the fact that he hadn’t fought for her and her mother, that he had chosen someone else.

  ‘Do you believe in fate?’

  ‘I try not to think about it. I don’t know what I think about things like that. I barely believe in coincidences though.’

  ‘I think maybe your mother and I weren’t meant to be. The obstacles were too many for it to be an accident.’

  ‘I’m not sure where you’re going with this.’

  ‘I think that me and her were never about us. I think we were brought together so that you could exist. I think you are the reason we fell for each other. You are special, important in some way.’

  ‘Isn’t everyone?’ Imogen said, brushing off the compliment. Is this how he let himself off the hook for not being around?

  ‘Maybe, yes. Your mother loved you very much, even though I know you struggled together, but because of your struggle you are a remarkable person.’

  ‘Is that what you tell yourself? That me growing up without a father is fine because it was character-building?’

  ‘I’m sorry to make light of it. I am sorry I missed all those years with you.’

  ‘I’m not. We did OK,’ Imogen said more defensively than she intended.

  ‘We can talk about the past if you want to. We can talk about why I wasn’t around.’

  ‘I know – you had to marry a good Greek girl and my mother wasn’t one.’

  ‘That’s true. I did have to marry someone I didn’t want to,’ Elias said, a hint of exasperation in his voice.

  ‘So why did you?’

  ‘Arranged marriage is a complicated thing that seems quite alien to people from other cultures. We were in financial trouble and my father had promised. I couldn’t dishonour him and so I married into the family.’

  ‘So, your money isn’t yours, it’s your wife’s?’

  ‘No, I worked hard and made sure not to repeat my father’s mistakes; my money is my own. Kiki has taken her half and we are now in the process of getting a divorce.’

  ‘And your children? Did you ever love their mother?’ Imogen said, still confused as to how he could have left them both.

  ‘Not like I loved your mother,’ Elias said, staring into his empty whisky tumbler.

  ‘So, what changed in your marriage?’

  ‘Our parents died, and we didn’t feel the same way about divorce as they did. She was in love with someone else, also. Our parents were the only winners in that situation. But we got our boys and we love them very much.’

  ‘All sounds very amicable,’ Imogen said, finding it hard to believe that the relationship that stopped her from having a father was that easy to dissolve.

  ‘It is.’

  ‘What do they think about me?’ Imogen said. Elias, a man who had been a ghost when she was growing up, suddenly thrust in to her life during a murder investigation barely a year ago. She had always been an only child and so it was hard to think of herself as an older sister to three grown men.

  ‘Your brothers? Surprised, but they want to meet you.’

  ‘They do?’ Imogen hadn’t even considered meeting his children, but hearing Elias call them her brothers made that seem inevitable and her discomfort returned.

  ‘Yes. We’re having a family gathering soon, would you like to come?’

  ‘I don’t know. It feels too soon for that. I can’t just get a whole new family now that my mother has gone.’ Imogen said. Irene was the only parent she had ever known; she had longed for more when she was younger and now that her mother was dead, she felt like it was wrong to replace her immediately.

  ‘At least consider meeting with me properly – we could have dinner on Friday night.’

  ‘I’m sorry. It’s too soon. I need more time.’

  Imogen stood up and left her half-finished gin on the counter. This was all too strange. First he wanted to get to know her, now he wanted her to meet her brothers. Just the word brother sounded alien to her in this context; she had no reference for it. It didn’t mean anything to her, not in the same way as mother did, not in the same way that orphan did. That’s how she felt, orphaned, even though her father was sat right opposite her. It didn’t matter; she was all alone in the world now. No more Greys.

  He stood up and held his hand out for her to shake. She took pity on him, knowing full well that she was the only person he could truly share his grief over her mother’s death with. She put her arms around him and felt his tension ease within her embrace. From now on, he would be the only connection she had to her mother, too. She had to consider carefully what to do next. There was a whole other world that she could immerse herself in, but the idea of it scared her. She was only just getting accustomed to the one she was living in now. Imogen needed to decide whether she wanted all her life changes to happen at once, get it over with. Could she handle any more heartbreak?

  Chapter Four

  ‘Please state your name for the tape,’ Imogen said. She had barely got into work when she was informed about the young girl waiting to be processed and questioned.

  ‘Caitlin Watts,’ the girl said, not looking at Imogen but clearly sizing Adrian up.

  ‘And how old are you?’

  ‘I just turned nineteen.’

  ‘You were spotted breaking into the old chapel on Smalling
Street, is that correct?’ Adrian said.

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry.’ She tilted her head down, keeping her eyes on him.

  ‘Was there a reason for that?’ Imogen asked.

  ‘Not a good one. I just wanted to see if I could,’ Caitlin said, still staring at Adrian.

  Imogen noted that there was no nervous disposition with this girl at all; she seemed almost defiant, even a little defensive. What was her game?

  ‘We’re trying to get hold of the reverend in charge, who will tell us if anything is damaged or stolen.’

  ‘He’s away at the moment, gone to some pilgrim site in Kent.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Because I live with him,’ Caitlin said with a hint of a smile. ‘He’s my grandad.’

  Imogen tried to gauge whether this was a lie or not; there was something very hard to read about Caitlin, a dishonesty about her. She looked over to Adrian, who shook off his surprise at this revelation very quickly and recomposed himself. Imogen could tell the girl was fixated on getting a reaction out of Adrian; her strange flirtation seemed to be working on him, he was visibly flustered by her.

  ‘Do you have any way of contacting him?’ Adrian said.

  ‘Not for a couple of days. He will be back before the weekend, though. He’ll tell you that nothing is missing or damaged; I’m not like that.’

  ‘If that were true you wouldn’t even be here at all,’ Imogen said.

  ‘We’ll check out your story – where will you be if we need to contact you?’ Adrian said.

  ‘I’ll be at my grandfather’s house, or at class. One of the two.’

  ‘What are you studying?’ Adrian said.

  ‘Psychology at the university. I want to be a shrink, get inside people’s heads and stuff.’ She smiled at Adrian.

  ‘You’re not staying in halls?’ Imogen said.

  ‘Not really any point, seeing as I live in the town. It saves money, which my grandad doesn’t have that much of.’ She answered Imogen coldly, seemingly annoyed that she was there at all, as though this would be a lot easier if Adrian were the only person in the room. She was an interesting girl – there was a definite vulnerability about her, something she was trying desperately to hide. Imogen could identify.